Chapter 1422: Invitation from Old Lady Fan
Chapter 1422: Chapter 1422: Invitation from Old Lady Fan
The Company Commander Lin from Hushan Prefecture angrily slammed the table: "Company Commander Qin, a grown man, how can he listen to his wife like this? Isn’t this a disgrace to us men? And that Gu Family woman, so ugly yet daring to cause trouble, isn’t she afraid of being divorced by Company Commander Qin?!"
"Company Commander Lin, you may not know, but Company Commander Qin will never divorce the Gu Family woman. She was calculated to be his wife by Company Commander Qin as he wants to hold onto the Gu Family’s money, how could he be willing to divorce her?"
Company Commander Lin frowned deeply and asked: "How so?"
The person kindly explained how Luotian, the Gu Family, and several others relied on the Gu Family’s woman to get wealthy, and how Qin San Lang willingly depended on her financially.
With a bang, Company Commander Lin, furious, slammed the table almost to pieces, cursing Qin San Lang: "Truly a disgrace to men, not only relying on a woman financially but also scheming against her! If it weren’t for the rush to the Northwest to resist the Kangrong, I’d slaughter him myself!"
Company Commander Lin was upright, a true man, and couldn’t stand men relying on women financially and scheming against their wives.
But other company commanders persuaded him: "Company Commander Lin, why be angry? This is between the Qin family and the Gu family, let them be. We don’t need to intervene."
Just watch the show.
But there were also smart people in the Westward Army.
Ding Ge, seeing Qin San Lang buying large amounts of duck and goose feathers, also instructed his servants to buy some back, dry them, and fill them into quilt covers, having his servants cover themselves for the night.
The next day, the servants reported: "Master, quilts filled with duck and goose feathers are unbelievably warm and light; they are great!"
Ding Ge listened and, lowering himself, endured the prickly smell of duck and goose feathers, covered himself with a goose feather quilt for an hour, and finally understood the benefits of a goose feather quilt, exclaiming: "That Gu Family woman is indeed smart, just too ugly!"
Honestly speaking, Ding Ge was somewhat jealous, jealous that Qin San Lang married such a smart wife.
And two days later, something more jealousy-inducing happened.
People from the Gu Family found something called snake ointment grass, using its roots to make juice and applying it to the hands to quickly relieve the itch from frostbite.
Most of their soldiers were from the South, and arriving in the North, each one developed frostbite, itching unbearably, and many soldiers’ relatives cried from the itch.
"Immediately send our people to find it, we can’t let the Qin family gain the advantage!" Ding Ge urgently ordered, then scolded Ding Changsheng: "What kind of work are you doing? How could you miss such good things? We even brought a doctor, a bunch of useless fools!"
"Master, calm down. I will immediately take people to dig." Ding Changsheng hurriedly took the Ding family’s servants to find the snake ointment grass.
Unfortunately, it was mid-winter, and the leaves of the snake ointment grass had fallen, requiring the doctor to dig around the ground for a long time before finding it among the withered branches.
A group of people dug at the snake ointment grass like hungry wolves, exhausting the population of snake ointment grass they found, but only dug up a little over two pounds, not nearly enough.
Gu Jinli heard about this and was almost furious: "The Ding family is ruthless, don’t they know you can’t exhaust the mountain’s resources, you need to leave seeds?!"
But from this incident, she also realized that the Ding family was ruthless from the master to the servant, they must be more wary.
"Erqing, go tell Ye Dakou to take out five pounds of snake ointment grass roots and bury them with San Qi, Mai Dong, and some others, so they can sprout next spring."
Gu Jinli, in her previous life as a military doctor, studied both Chinese and Western medicine. When she learned Chinese medicine, she was reminded repeatedly that medicinal herbs are precious, even when seeing good and precious herbs, you can’t exhaust them, you must leave seeds.
Having experienced famine, she understood this principle even more, knowing that the mountain’s resources could become their lifeline in the future, exhausting them is cutting off their own path.
"Okay, the slave will handle it right away." Erqing quickly went to notify Ye Dakou and the others.
Ye Dakou and the others were also furious after hearing this, waiting till nightfall before quietly going out to plant the snake ointment grass roots.
Ding Ge, seeing only slightly more than two pounds of snake ointment grass dug up, was furious, instructing Ding Changsheng: "Follow closely those in the Gu Family who know medicine, wherever they go to find herbs, follow them. These herbs are scarce, we can’t lose to them."
However, Ding Ge had already lost.
The people on Gu Jinli’s side not only found snake ointment grass today but also found another good thing—Antiseptic herb.
Gu Jinli had recently been reading the medical book given by Master Hu, which recorded an Antiseptic herb that can draw out pus from the hooves of livestock.
Livestock hooves are very prone to disease, many horses, mules, donkeys, and cows appear strong but when they have small wounds on their hooves, they start to fester and breed worms, by the time it’s discovered, the horses, mules, cows, etc., are near death.
In this era, horses are very precious, much more valuable than people, and their horses are few, unable to endure losses. Therefore, when Gu Jinli saw the record of the Antiseptic herb, she immediately drew it as described in the medical book.
She stayed up late drawing over twenty pages and called Ye Jingzi first thing at dawn, telling her about the Antiseptic herb, making sure she recognized the herb from the drawings and then instructing her to give the drawings to Ye Dakou, Doctor Dai, and the others, to specifically search for this herb.
She also specially instructed to do it discreetly, not letting others find out.
If discovered that they were being followed, just say they were searching for other herbs. In short, this Antiseptic herb, which concerns military supplies, must be kept in their hands first.
Ye Jingzi and the others did as instructed, and today finally found the Antiseptic herb, but Ding Ge’s people were trailing behind them, leaving Doctor Dai no choice but to abandon less important information to protect key interests, disclosing only their finding of snake ointment grass.
Unexpectedly, just one snake ointment grass exposed Ding Ge and his group’s predatory nature.
However, having preserved the Antiseptic herb, Gu Jinli was still very pleased.
But she hadn’t been pleased for long before Old Lady Fan sent Chunzhi over to invite her.
Today Chunzhi was dressed very prettily, her attitude was even more kind, first giving salutation, then apologizing, admitting her mistake, before stating her purpose.
Gu Jinli wanted to curse inwardly, no need to ask, Old Lady Fan inviting her over was definitely because she had her eye on the snake ointment grass and wanted to ask her for it.
For the sake of Qin San Lang, Gu Jinli didn’t want to offend this superior’s mother, so she had Erqing and Xiao Ji each carry a bag of snake ointment grass, following Chunzhi to see Old Lady Fan.
Today’s lodging had no inn, Old Lady Fan met her in a tent.
But as soon as she entered the tent, Old Lady Fan couldn’t help but dry heave twice, inhaling the fragrance of a sachet, suppressing the rotten egg smell on Gu Jinli before forcing out a smile, saying to Gu Jinli: "You must be Company Commander Qin’s new bride, the Gu Family woman?"
Old Lady Fan was doing her utmost to appear kind and amiable, but upon close listening, there was still a hint of stiffness and dislike in her voice.
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